Daniel P. Diaz

“One colleague suggested the thesis that, if it were generally true that an erring conscience could lead to salvation, then even the SS troops under Hitler would have been justified and would now be in heaven, since they had committed their evil deeds out of fanatical conviction and without the least disturbance to their consciences.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Values in a Time of Upheaval: Meeting the Challenges of the Future

“Conscience means the abolition of mere subjectivity when man’s intimate sphere is touched by the truth that comes from God.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Values in a Time of Upheaval: Meeting the Challenges of the Future

“the loss of the ability to see one’s guilt, the falling silent of conscience in so many areas, is a more dangerous illness of the soul than guilt that is recognized as guilt.”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Values in a Time of Upheaval: Meeting the Challenges of the Future

“It seems therefore that we have a conflict between two antithetical models, morality of conscience and morality of authority. The freedom of the Christian is safeguarded by the primal proposition of the moral tradition, that the conscience is the highest norm and that one must follow it even against authority. When authority—in this case the Church’s magisterium—speaks on matters of morality, it supplies material that helps the conscience form its own judgment, but ultimately it is only conscience that has the last word. Some authors express this ultimately decisive authority of conscience by saying that conscience is infallible.1”
― Pope Benedict XVI, Values in a Time of Upheaval: Meeting the Challenges of the Future